Hiroshi Yamano

HIROSHI YAMANO —

Born in 1956 in Fukuoka, Japan, Hiroshi Yamano has been working with glass for over 25 years. He has studied at prestigious schools throughout the US and Japan, such as California College of Arts and Crafts, Tokyo Glass Art Institute, and Rochester Institute of Technology where he received his Masters in Fine Arts.

Yamano began working with glass in 1975 having seen an exhibition of Scandinavian glass in Kyoto. After traveling to Europe, he returned to Japan to complete his studies. He spent the next two years studying glass. At California College of Arts and Crafts, under Marvin Lipofsky, he learned the creative aspects of glass, and at the Tokyo Glass Art Institute he learned the technical aspects of glass.

Yamano's list of exhibitions is as impressive as it is international. Venues include the United States, Japan, Switzerland, Germany and Australia. He has received numerous awards, most notably in 1991, The Rakow Commission, an annual award presented to a leading glass artist, from The Corning Museum of Glass. The resulting piece was presented to the Corning Museum of Glass. His work appears in many collections, both public and private, including The Corning Museum of Glass in New York, the Wheaton Glass Museum in New Jersey and the Chrysler Museum in Virginia.

Hiroshi Yamano has been an integral part of a generation of artists who have transformed the glass vessel from a functional to a sculptural form. His vessels are glass canvases for his artistic expression, and in the creation of his work, he has transformed the craft of glass into an art.
Hiroshi Yamano has worked throughout the world as an instructor at the prestigious Pilchuck Glass School, as a lecturer at The Glass Art Society conference in Mexico, The Aus Glass Conference in Australia and the Vanersborg Glass Festival in Sweden. In 1998 he was invited to be a guest at Waterford Crystal in Ireland.

At Rochester Institute of Technology in New York, Yamano began his series entitled "From East to West". There he developed the technique for which he is best known: rolling thickly blown hot glass over silver leaf to fuse it, scratching figures into the surface, and then plating the surface with copper. The idea for this technique came from studying Japanese metal work which is used for making traditional objects such as sword guards and copper containers. Yamano believes that the fish in his "From East to West" series are self-portraits with the mountains representing the United States and the water symbolizing Japan with its rivers, lakes and oceans.

Yamano always knew that it was glass he wanted to pursue. "My works," he says, "come from all my experiences. The memories I have from my experiences are my most important treasures. To keep finding my treasures, I have to keep swimming the world like a fish swimming in the waters." For the last 27 years, Yamano has been traveling the world and gathering inspiration. "I am a fish," he says, "who is always looking for something. I am a fish who cannot stop swimming until my body stops moving. Maybe I will swim forever, like the universe."

Fish are a recurrent motif in Yamano's glass vessels. He adheres to a strict thematic approach expressing his dynamism through his fluid forms. In some vessels he delineates form and decoration by casing his panels with patterns of fish in colorless glass. In others, he merges the two into opulent, elegant forms. Yamano's work is also as much about interiors as it is about exteriors, weaving together rich brocades of gold, silver and copper foils while creating a seductive interplay of transparency and translucency.

In his newest work, Yamano creates large circular windows that open into his gilt interiors delicately engraved with his fish motif. From the outside, the gentle folds of the overlapping leaves of gold, silver and copper create the appearance of precious papier mache. The most recent blown vessels include as many elegant, timeless forms as do his signature spheres with fish perched upon them, forms that reflect both tradition and innovation.

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